How To Cut a Curved Line

Q: My little girl has long hair. I trim it straight across. I think it would look a whole lot better if it had a curve (U)
instead of just being straight across but I don't know how to do it without really messing it up. Please help.

A: The cutting process is actually much simpler than you might think, although it requires that you pay close attention to your position and
the position in which you hold the hair to trim it. Have your daughter take a seat on a stool placed so that you have easy access to
move around her. (Alternately, if you have a stool that swivels, sit her on it and you can simply move her rather than yourself.)

Comb or brush the hair until it is smooth and free of tangles. Spray the hair with water or
leave-in conditioner and comb through until the hair is thoroughly damp. The hair should be parted as desired and combed out to
evenly distribute the hair around the head. Cut guides in the hair at the front by taking a strand of hair from each side of the
face and bringing them together in front. Trim the two strands together to make sure the lengths are even.

Click to enlarge

Move to the back of the head and cut another guide in the center back to the length you want the
hair to fall. {Note: these guides needn’t be more than ½-to-1-inch wide.} With all three guides established, you are ready to begin trimming.

Pick a side and start at the back. You’re going to be taking 1-inch sections at a time. Trim these
sections using the back guide length. Turn your daughter or move yourself frequently to make sure that the segment of hair you are
cutting is always directly in front of you. When cutting the segments, don’t hold the hair out from the body, rather keep it straight
down as close to the body as you can. Work in this manner until you reach the middle of the side you began with.

You will trim from back to the middle on each side, then from the front to the middle. When you
get to the shoulder area, you can use the segments already cut to give you the “line” to follow and resolve the hassle of working
over the shoulders (which makes holding the hair straight down difficult).

By following this method, once the hair is trimmed and combed back over the shoulders the hairline
will follow the gentle, natural-looking curved line you want.